Action Comics #4
Grant Morrison: writer
Rags Morales: penciller
Rick Bryant and Sean Parsons: inkers
Back up story by:
Sholly Fisch: writer
Brad Walker: artist
The Comic
Whoa, an Action Comics issue with a back up story! Finally, a way to justify the extra buck for this issue. And it actually lives up to the title of the book.
The main story involves the city of Metropolis getting attacked by the Terminauts. The Terminauts are the preservers of worlds and not Brainiac who I thought they would turn out to be. Looks like the Terminauts give us a reason for the Bottle City of Kandor surviving into the new 52.
There is a lot of action in this issue, moving characters around and having little bit moments in this issue that tells you about the characters. It is an entertaining read, but its definitely not a point that you want to start with. You'll need the background information given from previous issues, and that is all reasonably good until you get to the end of the main story.
That's right, the big cliffhanger ending of Metropolis going through the process of being turned into a bottle city won't be resolved until issue #7. The next two issues will bring in a guest artist, Andy Kubert, who will be telling an interlude story. Presumably this is being done so that way Rags Morales can continue to tell the story with Morrison and has a few issues to catch up.
I'm of two minds with this decision. On one end, I am glad that DC has decided to continue with their schedule of making the comics come out on time each month and are willing to move around artists and writers in order to get that done. This is done to avoid any lengthy delays that some creators are known for. Does it suck that then in this situation we don't get any story resolution for a couple of issues? Yes. But then we won't have a guest artist come in and interrupt the story flow. We already have an idea of who is who in this comic with Rags drawing, so let's go ahead and finish with him involved.
On the other hand, it sucks to read that the conclusion won't be published until March. That's kinda lame, but I will hold judgement until I see if the interlude story will be worth the wait. Who knows, it might even be better than the main one.
Speaking of being better than the main story, how about that back up? It features the debut of Steel. While there are a couple of groan moments within the story, I really enjoyed it. Within 8 pages we got an origin story, a fight with a villain, and got to know a bit about the character of John Henry Irons and how he fits in the new 52. I gotta say that I liked this a lot. Why this type of story telling wasn't done in the first three issues is beyond me. Each 8 page backup could easily feature a supporting cast member or big player from the old DC universe and reintroduce them to this new universe. This could happen with a lot more titles that DC publishes and I would happily pay that extra buck to get it.
The art in this issue has just gotten progressively worse. There are a couple of better moments here and there, but I hope that when Morales comes back to drawing this book, he makes it as good as the first issue was. It just feels like the quality keeps slipping.
So this issue will get two grades obviously.
Grades
Main story:
Words: 7/10
Pictures: 5/10 - Was it just me, or did Superman's head look like it was made of Silly Putty? Seriously, I don't think he had the same chin in any two panels.
Back Up:
Words: 7/10 - for the cheese.
Pictures: 7/10 - felt like a sharper look of the main story, like the artist had time to draw it and make it nice instead of a rush job type of feel.
Issue as a whole:
Recommend: Yea, but you can wait until you get issue #7 so that way you can read the story and not miss much.
Buy Next Issue: I'll give the "guest" story a try.
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